


Imminent Dangers

by JaneTurenne



Category: Gallifrey (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-23
Updated: 2012-11-23
Packaged: 2017-11-19 07:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneTurenne/pseuds/JaneTurenne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Threatening the Lady President of Gallifrey or any member of her staff is ill-advised to say the least.  But threatening them in front of one another is quite frankly suicidal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imminent Dangers

i)

“You know, I can see why you might think it wouldn’t be a problem, threatening Cardinal Braxiatel in front of me. We don’t exactly have the reputation of being the best of friends, he and I. And you might think to yourself that the CIA is a fairly toothless organization in this... _modern_ day and age. No Oubliette of Eternity to vanish criminals and dissidents as though they’d never been. No mind probe anymore, to slowly flay your thoughts away one layer at a time. You might even believe that I would want revenge for that loss of power, on behalf of my Agents and my Agency. You might think I’d relish seeing the Lady President’s closest and, let’s be honest, most insufferable advisor splattered into so much staser dust.

“But if that were your assessment, there are two important points you would be missing. The first is that the Coordinator of the CIA, like Cardinal Braxiatel here, is a servant to the office of the President, and our President, for reasons known only to herself, _likes_ Cardinal Braxiatel. I am obliged to make a show of attempting to rescue him from your clutches if only because the Lady President will go off on one of her famous tantrums otherwise. And if you had ever seen the wrong side of her temper, you would understand why that is something I would prefer to avoid.

“But, to tell the truth, some part of me is very much hoping that you will be idiotic enough to pull that trigger. Because the second thing that you seem not to be taking into account is the fact that the Lady President and the Cardinal you currently have by the scruff have only been able to reform those CIA practices that they’ve actually _found out_ about.

“I can see that you think I’m bluffing. After all, the President has the Matrix, and the Matrix knows everything, doesn’t it? _Surely_ there’s nothing the CIA can do that the Matrix can’t record.

“Oh, yes, the Matrix does know everything at one time or another. But occasionally, just every once in a while, even the Matrix sees something so _unspeakable_ that it turns away in shame.

“I’d like you to consider just how _bad_ that would have to be. To think about just what sorts of secrets the CIA might be keeping. I’d like you to look at my eyes, and wonder what kinds of horrors they have seen. And then I hope you will consider the fact that it would be doing me a favor if you would pull that trigger right now. Because if you assassinate Cardinal Braxiatel, the Lady President will be distraught. She won’t want to think about the details of _your_ punishment. She will be only too pleased to hand you over to me, where she will never have to think about you again.

“And that would be very useful to me. Because the things we keep down in the silence and the dark--the things nobody sane has ever looked in the eye--the things that would be nightmare made solid, if any nightmare had ever been so horrific--the things to which it would be my personal pleasure to introduce Cardinal Braxiatel’s assassin...

“...are _hungry._ ”

ii)

“You think I am stupid, do you not? Hello, man with the gun? Yes, you. You think that I am stupid, is that not so? That this is why you can point a staser at Narvin in front of me? Because I am too _stupid_ to get in the way of your plan?

“Perhaps you are right. Compared to you Time Lords, I do know very little. But I do have one thing that you do not have: I have curiosity. Do you know this word, curiosity? I am not sure that your language even has this idea. You do? Good. That means you will understand what I have to say.

“I have lived around your people for a long time, you know. Even before I lived on this planet, I traveled with one of your species. And _he_ told me something about you that I have always been curious about. He said that just after you regenerate, for a little while, it is very hard to kill you. If someone cuts off your leg, he said, you would just grow another! I am not sure whether I believed him--he liked to tell stories. But I have always been curious.

“I was very, very young then. I have lived on Gallifrey most of the time since. And that means I have been around Time Lords, with all your reverence for science. I think that you sometimes trust science _too_ much, as the people of my tribe did their gods, but I do see that there is value in the way you think. I have learned something of _scientific_ curiosity, as well as the usual kind. About experiments, and collecting data.

“So now, I do not think that I would be satisfied just to know whether the story the Doctor told me is true. Now I would like to know _how_ true. If I were to kill you now--if I were to take my knife, this knife, and I were to stab you in one of your hearts--for how _long_ would you be so strong, after your body had changed? If I cut off one of your fingers, and another took its place, what would happen with the _next_ finger? Or if I cut off all of them at once? Would it still work, tomorrow? The next day? Would it work if I cut you in half? How long would it be until this magic stopped? Until your body could not keep up, could not keep the blood inside, and it bled and bled and bled from you until you changed _again_? And would that _next_ new body do the same thing? And the one after that? How many days or weeks or months would it take before your very last body had been carved up by my knife?

“I have never had a chance to test these things. And I am not cruel. I would never do such a thing to someone who was innocent. Perhaps I will never have a chance to do them at all. But _you_ , man-with-the-gun, _you_ seem to think that you can kill Narvin. And you seem to think that I am too stupid to stop you. Perhaps you think that once you had shot him, you could turn your gun on me before I could stop you. And perhaps that is true. I am very quick, but you _might_. It would be a fair fight. I _like_ a fair fight. I have not had one in too long. Perhaps I would not be able to catch you before you could kill me. But perhaps I would. And if you killed my good _friend_ Narvin--and you should think about this _very hard_ , with your big TIme Lord brain--you would not be someone who was innocent any more.

“I will not chase you, if you leave now. You did not know who I was, when you pointed that gun at Narvin. _You_ were stupid. But now you know what _might_ happen to you. You know that if you shoot Narvin, there are only two ways that this can end: either you kill me too, or I tie you up,and see how many parts of you I can cut off before you die. You could choose to leave Narvin alone, and go away quietly. But if you need to know which it would be, there is an easy way for you to find out.

“And so I have only one question for you, Time Lord: is your curiosity as strong as mine?”

iii)

“Oh, well _done_. With the number of sentient beings in this universe who would appreciate the chance to point a staser at the Lady Romana and the number of people employed specifically and exclusively in the cause of preventing that eventuality, you deserve congratulations for making it this far! An accomplishment, to be sure. You’re not the _first_ to manage it, true, but it is an elite fellowship. A few of them are even still living, I believe. Truly, you ought to be proud.

“I suppose you have thought further ahead than this? You had demands to issue, perhaps? Or were you simply planning to shoot her and have done with it? Was there an escape route built in, or were you expecting to turn that staser on yourself afterwards? Or to permit yourself to be captured? I wouldn’t recommend that, frankly. There are any number of people who would be _very_ upset--our Lady President has her share of enemies, true, both political and personal, but she does also have a certain number of very staunch... allies. Have you met the Lady Leela? Very loyal, she is. And not entirely what you might call _forgiving_.

“Not that any of that is _strictly_ relevant any longer. Oh no, it’s far too late now, I’m afraid. Because I happen to be one of those allies, and you’ve already let me go on too long, you see. _Listened_ to me for rather longer than you ought. One doesn’t like to brag, but I happen to have certain... unique talents. The voice, just for example. Rather good, isn’t it? Not a mere happenstance, I can assure you--the result of an enormous amount of effort and training. But the _results_...

“...are, I admit, not as precise as I would prefer. Oh, I have you under my control now, never doubt that. You will never again have this voice _entirely_ out of your head. If I had had a little more time, a little more _access_ , you would have put down that gun five microspans ago and been quietly about your life, but alas, the conditions are far from ideal. Still, I think we can come to an amicable solution. I think, in fact, that you will soon find that you very much wish to do so.

“You see, my fine young would-be assassin, my voice has now wormed its way thoroughly into your subconscious. The next time you fall asleep--and you must sleep _sometime_ , everyone must--it will, shall we say, _activate_. All I need do _now_ is to make one or two little... suggestions.

“There must be someone in this world who you care about, yes? An aged mother, perhaps. A lover. A sibling. A friend? Possibly only yourself. I assure you, the ‘who’ is entirely irrelevant. There will be somebody; there always is. Someone who you would never, ever want to see harmed. Someone who you would like, still less, to harm yourself.

“And this--now, _this_ is the genuinely clever bit. All I need do now is simply _mention_ that you ought, from this moment, to treat the Lady President with the most exquisite care. To treat her exactly as you would treat whoever in this universe is dearest of all to you.

“Because some night--not today, not next week, but precisely when you are least expecting it--you will find yourself waking from a restless sleep and sliding from your bed. You will seek out the person who you care for most of all, whoever that may be. And whatever it is you do to Romana now, _precisely_ that, you will do again. Whatever harm comes to the Lady President now will be revisited on whomsoever you love. And here is, I think, the most important part: you will be fully conscious. You will _watch_ yourself act. And you will have absolutely no way of stopping yourself.

“So before you do anything, and I do mean _anything_ further to the Lady Romana, I should think very, very carefully. I should ask myself not only what I was willing to sacrifice, but how much I could possibly endure.

“Just think on that, won’t you? Feel free to doubt me, if you must, but I shouldn’t advise it. And my Lady President--I am sorry for permitting this situation to escalate to such a degree. As your Chancellor, it is of course my responsibility to ensure your personal safety, and it grieves me that such a situation could have come to pass. Still, I expect the young man will be putting down his staser and making his retreat in the near future, yes? Yes, I thought so.

“Now, Madam President, if you would care to turn your attention back to these budgetary projections...”

iv)

“So this is how you’ve chosen to get at me today, is it? On another day, possibly, _if_ you didn’t have a gun pointed at Leela, I might consider complimenting you on your cleverness. Generally speaking, it’s considered the job of a bodyguard to stand on the wrong side of a gun; it took a certain degree of insight to recognize that I wouldn’t simply tell you to shoot her and have done with it. It was still an unspeakably _stupid_ thing to do, but _insightfully_ stupid.

“You’ll be counting on my reputation as a Time Lady of compassion, yes? I suppose you think that even if all of this goes very wrong for you, I won’t have anything _very_ awful done to you. Hasn’t got the stomach for any of the nastier truths of this universe, isn’t that what they say about me? Naive, so my critics claim. And you are one of my critics, I can only imagine, so you’ll believe that too. Even my supporters call me ‘fair’ and ‘just’, as though, on Gallifrey, that wasn’t just ‘naive’ in a different set of robes.

“And they’re right, you know. In a way. I don’t derive any pleasure from causing pain. What does it say about our world, when lacking a sadistic streak is a hindrance to further career prospects? You seem to have that part down. The joy in viciousness, that is. You might have gone far-- _if_ you hadn’t underestimated me. Because that flaw has sunk more careers on this planet even than the flaw of compassion.

“Because, you see, a distaste for pain is not the same thing as a distaste for power. I have a very great deal of power. I have _time_. I have _all_ of time. I am, one might say, the ultimate authority on the subject. I need only quirk my fingers, and the threads of time will twist around them, wherever I want them to go. And with power like _that_ , I have no need to cause anyone pain.

“Your life cannot have been perfect up to now. Goodness knows, no one’s has. It must have had a worst moment. You must have known, as everyone has known, a moment of suffering so intense that you were certain, as it happened, that it would not ever fade.

“I will take that moment as time served, if you walk away from this now. If you put down that gun and walk away having caused no harm, I will cause no harm to you. You have my word on that, and believe me, I think, _naive_ enough to keep it. But if you murder Leela now, you idiotic, cowardly _child_ \--if you hurt her instead of me, if you take her from me, if you kill her in my stead, on my behalf--if you do that, you will cause me just the sort of timeless agony I’ve just described. I will live that moment for as many lives as I have left.

“And so if you pull that trigger--if you so much as _think_ of pulling that trigger--I will find that worst moment of your lives. I will find it, and I will trap you in it. I can do that; you know that I can. I need not _cause_ you pain at all. I need only bind you up within the pain you already possess. And I am a _just_ woman, and a _fair_ woman, and a _powerful_ woman, and I have _all of time_. So if you have _any_ sense at all, you will _think_ about what all that means, and you will put that staser down, and you will never, never, _never_ threaten Leela in my presence ever again.

“Have I made myself entirely understood?”


End file.
